Maria of Swabia

Maria of Hohenstaufen (3 April 1201 – 29 March 1235) was a member of the powerful Hohenstaufen dynasty of German kings which lasted from 1138 to 1254. She is also known to history as Marie of Swabia.

Family

Philip of Swabia and Irene Angelina of Byzantium, the parents of Maria of Hohenstaufen

Maria of Hohenstaufen was born in Arezzo, Tuscany, Italy on 3 April 1201. She was the second daughter of Philip of Swabia and Irene Angelina of Byzantium.^[1] In 1208, at the age of seven, Maria was left an orphan by the unexpected deaths of her parents. On 21 June, her father was murdered by Otto of Wittelsbach, and two months later her mother died after giving birth to a daughter, who did not live beyond early infancy.

Marriage and issue

Sometime before 22 August 1215, she married Henry II, heir to the Duchy of Brabant (present-day Belgium) and Lothier.^[2] They had:

• Matilda of Brabant (14 June 1224 – 29 September 1288), married firstly, Robert I of Artois,^[2] by whom she had two children, Robert II of Artois and Blanche of Artois; she married secondly Guy III, Count of Saint-Pol, by whom she had six children.
• Beatrix of Brabant (1225 – 11 November 1288), married firstly Henry Raspe, Landgrave of Thuringia, and secondly William III of Dampierre.^[2] She died childless.
• Maria of Brabant (c. 1226 – 18 January 1256),^[2] married Louis II, Duke of Bavaria. She was beheaded by her husband on suspicion of infidelity.
• Margaret of Brabant (died 14 March 1277), Abbess of Herzogenthal.
• Henry III, Duke of Brabant (c. 1230 – 28 February 1261), married Adelaide of Burgundy (c. 1233 – 23 October 1273), daughter of Hugh IV, Duke of Burgundy, by whom he had issue, including Henry IV, Duke of Brabant, John I, Duke of Brabant, and Maria of Brabant, Queen consort of King Philip III of France.
• Philip of Brabant, died young.^[2]

Death

Maria of Hohenstaufen died on 29 March 1235 in Leuven, Brabant, five days before her thirty-fourth birthday. Less than six months later, her husband succeeded his father as Duke of Brabant and Lothier.

In 1241, Henry married his second wife, Sophie of Thuringia, the daughter of Ludwig IV of Thuringia and Elisabeth of Hungary. The marriage produced two children: Henry I, Landgrave of Hesse and Elizabeth of Brabant, who married Albert I, Duke of Brunswick-Lüneburg. Sophie was the only wife of Henry to be styled Duchess of Brabant and Lothier.

Ancestry

References

Sources

• Baldwin, Philip B. (2014). Pope Gregory X and the Crusades. The Boydell Press.
• Dunbabin, Jean (2011). The French in the Kingdom of Sicily, 1266–1305. Cambridge University Press.